Voice of Experience: Beth Brooke-Marciniak, Global Vice Chair of EY

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Beth Brooke-MarciniakBy Cathie Ericson

When Beth Brooke-Marciniak first started her career, she found she was intensely focused on the job at hand, rather than paying special attention to building relationships along the way.

But she soon learned the importance of building those by giving to others. “If your relationships are built based on what you can do for the other person, it’s like putting pennies in the bank, and there will be a cumulative effect later in your career,” she says.

Finding an Intersection between Business and Public Service

Beth always urges young women to find a place where they can experience an entrepreneurial culture and have the chance to advance on their own merits. “In a firm like mine, you can take as much responsibility as you can handle, which is an environment that is particularly suited for women who can take control and go all in with good sponsors and mentors. The key is figuring out life as it comes, rather than anticipating issues and standing back waiting to be tapped.”

Brooke-Marciniak has spent nearly four decades at EY, except for a brief stint in public service during the Clinton administration. She started her career in the Indianapolis office in the auditing department, but soon segued to the tax practice. She relocated to D.C. to run the insurance tax practice, and it was in that capacity that she was known to the Clinton administration. They were interested in the unique blend of experience she had gained working on healthcare clients since managed care was new at the time and the tax policy was confusing.

She said she would give two years which she says were a fascinating journey “on the front lines of the legislative experience in a great administration that was trying to change the world.”

During that time, she found there was often a disconnect in how business and government worked together. She realized that the world needed someone with the patience and diplomatic skills to figure out where CEOs were coming from on issues and what society needed — and join them.

It was with that vision that Brooke-Marciniak sat down with EY executives and told them that she didn’t want to go back to the tax practice. The chairman invited her to come back to be part of the senior team, even though her role and title weren’t yet clearly defined. She trusted his word and was soon immersed in strategy work, until the Enron situation happened, shaking public trust and confidence in the industry’s work. She knew that the field needed to build a long-term effort to restore credibility, and she took on the task of leading the profession through those changes.

“I’m proud of how far we’ve come and how we pulled together after Enron and worked cooperatively with our competitors on matters of public policy to restore the industry,” she says.

Beth continues to see society looking to business to fill the gaps being left by government, yet noticing there remains some reticence to trusting business fully. And, business has to work hand in hand with government incentives that must be in place. “Business will do what’s in its self-interest, and we can’t solve everything, but by working together diplomatically all of society will benefit,” she says.

Embracing Differences Publicly

As proud as she is of her professional achievements, not much can match the impact of her coming out, which was far from ordinary. She had been asked as an ally to help with a video designed to reach teens who were contemplating suicide. But when she started filming it, she realized she didn’t want to stay in her role of “straight ally,” but wanted to be honest about who she was. “It just poured out of me: I wanted to tell these teens they are valuable because they’re different, not in spite of it,” she says.

And Brooke-Marciniak knows how it feels to be different. First, she was one of few women in a profession where her politics were different than most of her colleagues, Furthermore, she was an introvert in a sea of extroverts. “Although these qualities all made me feel very different, EY embraced me. I never felt unwelcome or excluded, and I realized that I was very lucky to work for this organization where I was valued for my differences. That was my ‘aha moment’ — that everyone is different and feels different.”

At that moment, when she came out, she says that her world went from black and white to life in full color. Once you are living an authentic life, colleagues can now engage you as a whole person, and you can be a whole leader, she says. And she adds, it’s even more challenging to be a closeted introvert because it feels dangerous to engage people one on one. “I was seen more as a loner and aloof which wasn’t true at all,” she says.

At EY, she has been instrumental in starting a global LGBT partner group and she works behind the scenes with the World Economic Forum on the LGBT agenda. “Social bias is an intractable process, but we are making headway,” she says.
However, these ongoing challenges underscore why Brooke-Marciniak shares with younger professionals that her best advice is to pay attention to the culture you are joining. “Anyone can learn what you need to learn, but if the culture doesn’t work, you’ll self-select out or they’ll kick you out,” she says, noting that cultures are not created equally. For her part, EY has been the perfect fit since all ideas are welcome and challenging the status quo is encouraged. “Our culture appreciates that better decisions are made through different ideas,” she says.

Brooke-Marciniak first knew her wife as a business colleague – neither of them knew one another was gay at the time they met. When the Wall Street Journal ran a story about the lack of gay CEOs and profiled Beth, her now-wife came to her and said she was closeted and wanted to discuss the struggle and risks. They had dinner to talk it through and the rest, as they say, is history — they now live happily ever after with two cats and two dogs.

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Voice of Experience: Rupa Briggs, Counsel, Capital Markets, Shearman & Sterling

Rupa BriggsBy Cathie Ericson

If you’re interested in doing something, be proactive and ask for it, recommends Rupa Briggs, who was just promoted to counsel as of March 1.

She notes that when you first start out you should work on as many different projects as possible to figure out what you like, and focus on building a strong reputation because competence begets more work. “Sometimes we tend to be ‘good girls,’ and don’t necessarily ask for opportunities, but you can’t be passive about your career. You must be in the driver’s seat,” she says. Because while people may have good intentions and want to be helpful, only you can plan the road map to get to your next steps.

Growing Her Career at Shearman & Sterling

After starting her legal career at a different firm, Briggs joined Shearman & Sterling in 2016, impressed with its capital markets platform and seeing vast opportunities for advancement and growth.

Over the years, she has become a trusted advisor to her clients, the professional achievement she is most proud of so far. “As a junior associate, you spend most of your time learning the deal process and how you fit into the larger picture, but as you continue to develop as an attorney and your knowledge of the substance of your practice grows, your interactions and client relationships begin to change,” she says. “It was so satisfying and rewarding when clients were directing questions to me in the first instance, instead of to a partner or senior associate,” she says, adding that it was very confidence building.

Currently Briggs is working on a couple of healthcare-related IPOs, which she finds exciting and interesting since it’s such an important milestone in these companies’ evolution to help them reach the next step in commercializing their drug or product. The space she is working in is cutting-edge and includes smaller biotechs focusing on, in some cases, rare diseases and medtech companies with innovative products for large patient populations.

“For me it’s tremendously satisfying because you see the impact these drugs or products will have on individuals, and you know that even in the context of an IPO, you are making a difference by helping the company raise the capital they need to get to the next level.”

Other exciting areas that will impact the world of business and financial markets are blockchain and artificial intelligence. Briggs sees that regulatory issues related to these emerging technologies will continue to evolve, and she watches with interest to see how clients will integrate these technologies into their own businesses and how Shearman & Sterling can help them navigate the challenges from a regulatory standpoint.

Women Need To Advocate Together

Briggs has found that it can be more challenging for women to develop the informal networks that men generally have. Because law partnerships tend to be male-dominated, many women face a dearth of role models. She encourages women to focus on building their own informal networks. “We put our heads down and work hard, but there are other skills and elements that are necessary to become successful that we don’t always know about.”

One ally is the firm’s WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) group, which she co-chairs, that offers both the opportunity to network and to learn more about these informal norms, while also building the professional development skills that women don’t as easily pick up, from building your brand to establishing and maintaining trusted relationships with clients.

She believes that men might naturally have more avenues to learn these skills and market them – so it’s important for women to support one another in creating those paths if they are not emerging.

On that note, she recommends building networks with both senior and junior women and urges senior professionals to pay it forward and serve as a mentor that a junior person can turn to for advice. “Being available and engaged with other women is the key to retention,” she says. She looks forward to helping further build the WISER program as it continues to focus on providing women at the firm with the tools to build their careers and professional relationships.

As mom to an active preschooler, Briggs says she focuses less on achieving work/life balance than just making sure she’s doing her best. “It’s easier to manage what’s going on and integrating work and life when you are engaged. The personal and intellectual satisfaction I receive from the practice spills over nicely to make all the parts of my life blend successfully.”

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Voice of Experience: Helena Yoon, Principal, Assurance, PwC

Helena Yoon

Sometimes you have to take risks and run toward the fire, says Helena Yoon, a Principal at PwC, a philosophy that has helped her create a rich and varied career.

Building an Agile Career at PwC

Yoon started as an intern at PwC more than 20 years ago. Although the common thread throughout her career has been a focus on clients, her roles have been in a wide variety of departments. Each time she left for maternity leave, she transitioned her portfolio to others on her team, and then would reinvent herself each time she returned, coming back to a different role. This allowed her to gain experience in compliance, regulatory audit and consulting.

“The strategy bolstered my career by forcing growth and change agility,” she notes, adding that her career success is proof of how she’s been able to handle the challenges.

“When I returned from my first maternity leave, I encountered some challenges and wondered how I could succeed professionally. Fortunately, I had a mentor who rallied around me and helped me work through how to balance and achieve what I wanted. Now, I see what a benefit it was to learn how to reinvent myself – the change agility has been invaluable to my career.”

Today she serves a mix of audit and non-audit clients in audit and consulting roles. The crux of everything she does is helping others maximize their potential, whether they’re clients or her internal team. “I’m proud that others can be more effective because of the work I do,” she says.

Yoon is fascinated by the changes that will be brought about by applying automation and analytics to her teams and clients, and seeing how business will be transformed as a result. Historically, large volumes of data sat in disparate locations, but now, there’s a way to pull the pieces together and turn data into meaningful information that can be applied to improving business.

Empowering Women in the Workplace

Yoon recommends women take the time to invest in relationships. “My tendency early on in my career was to put my head down and focus on the work at hand, and as a relational person, I wish I had known to nurture and invest in others right from the start.” Sometimes women tend to be comfortable in what they’re doing, but Yoon says we need to disrupt that, especially in professional services.

“A world of opportunity is open, but I spend a lot of time with younger women, and one theme I consistently hear is that they don’t see as many role models as males do, which makes it harder to envision the future three or four jumps ahead.” Fortunately, she says, advances are occurring that will make professional services more accessible to women. As one example, recently PwC announced the firm is expanding parental benefits, which will make a great difference for returning moms. The new and creative addition is that they will follow eight weeks of paid leave with four weeks of a reduced work schedule at one’s regular full-time pay.

“I creatively eased my way back myself, but now it’s an official program, which I think will really help retention,” she says.

As a wife and mom to four children ages 12, 10, 8 and 6, Yoon loves the dynamics and relationship between them. For example, her oldest went away for a youth group retreat, and the others missed him so much, they cried. Yoon was moved by the degree to which her children relied on one another and valued their time together as a family.

In addition to nurturing her close-knit family, Yoon says they love to entertain and take family vacations. She is also very actively involved in her church and is a board member at the Stamford Symphony.

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Voice of Experience: Rajashree Datta, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Rajashree DattaBy Cathie Ericson

“Focus on the basics, the building blocks and the details when you are starting out because when it comes time for you to be heard, you will have a depth of knowledge to draw upon that will position you well,” recommends Goldman Sachs’ Rajashree Datta.

Achieving Success and Helping Others Do the Same

Datta joined Goldman Sachs after graduating from Amherst College in 2000. Her first position was in the Investment Banking Division, and in 2003 she moved to the Treasury Department. After gaining almost 14 years of experience in the Treasury Department, she recently transferred to the Risk Division, where she now serves as global head of Liquidity Risk. In this role, she is responsible for Goldman Sachs’ liquidity risk management and ensuring appropriate risk levels are established across the firm.

“One of the reasons I have stayed in the firm is that every year I have had the opportunity to do something new: could be a new area of focus, could be a new project, or could be working in a new division. Moving to the Risk Division just continues this theme of embracing new challenges and continuing to grow,” says Datta.

Reflecting upon her previous experiences at the firm, Datta cites the peak of the 2008 financial crisis as a crucial moment: “I learned a great deal in the liquidity space during the financial crisis.” In addition, she notes that this experience crystallized for her the importance of how senior managers engage with their teams during high-intensity periods. “I saw firsthand how senior individuals’ abilities to remain calm improved the clarity of thought and quality of execution of the whole organization,” she says.

She noted that this experience shaped her interactions with her team: “It’s so important to think through how you will manage and behave in a crisis or stressful situation, particularly because junior people will typically follow the actions of senior leaders.”

In addition to serving as a leader for her team, Datta has long served as a mentor to others, and takes great pride in their success. “It has been so impactful to see people on my team be named managing director, because you hope that you contributed a little bit to their success.”

Driving a Career Through Giving and Listening to Advice

Datta notes that over a long career you’ll be faced with both professional and personal challenges, and she recommends that the best way to conquer such issues is to find mentors and peers who can provide guidance.

“I relied on mentors’ and peers’ advice when I began to prepare for my maternity leave,” says Datta. “Being the recipient of others’ perspectives – who reminded me that they have done it before in varying circumstances and with varying strategies – assured me that I would be able to successfully take my maternity leave and return to the firm.” Datta went on to note, “The thoughtfulness of my colleagues during my leave and the support I received after I came back cemented for me how much the firm cared about my ability to seamlessly reenter the workplace.”

Detailed feedback from mentors has also been extremely useful, Datta notes. “You should listen to both positive and constructive feedback, which is a key pillar to developing your skillset. Solicit feedback, participate in tough conversations, and action on constructive comments,” she recommends.

One of the programs within Goldman Sachs that was particularly influential for Datta is the Women’s Career Strategies Initiative, designed for individuals at the associate level. When she participated, she was concerned about her ability to balance family and work. “The program was tailored for my level – allowing me to network with others across the firm – and helped me identify strategies that would help me to be better positioned in my career going forward.”

As a woman in business, she has found that there aren’t barriers so much as challenges, particularly with regard to managing work and home. “It’s an issue that can only be solved individually since there isn’t a master solution that works for everyone,” she says, adding that individuals must evaluate each day, focus on their priorities and what they can realistically accomplish, and ask for help as needed. She notes, “It’s ok to say sometimes that you do not have the capacity to take on an extra project.”

Datta tries to prioritize time with her son, noting: “I try to carve out certain times or events that I don’t compromise on easily. Some days are easier than others but I typically do okay over the course of a week.”

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Voice of Experience: Deirdre Flood, Head of International Distribution, Wells Fargo Asset Management

Deidre Flood By Cathie Ericson

“You own your own path; you are your own CEO. Thus you need to manage your career to get where you want to go,” says Deirdre Flood of Wells Fargo Asset Management.

“For me opportunity knocked based on my work ethic and how I showed up to answer the door.”

Seizing opportunities as they arise has been the cornerstone of Flood’s successful career that spanned Europe and the United States, and back again.

Moving Where Opportunity Leads

At the ripe old age of 10, Flood remembers telling her elders that not only was she going to work for her money, but her money was going to work for her. Although she had varied interests throughout her teens, those words proved prescient, as she spent the first two decades of her career in financial management helping her clients money work for them.

After studying math, economics and French at University College Dublin, Flood was selected for a prestigious 18-month training program with Bank of Ireland Asset Management, the premier asset management firm. She was particularly fascinated by its global reach, with over half of its clients located outside Ireland. The internship entailed spending nine months at the headquarters in Dublin and then the other half in an international office. Flood requested a New York placement, but rather than the bright lights and big city of New York, she found herself in Greenwich, CT. Nevertheless, it was a smart career move as she found herself focused on the client-facing activities that would define her career.

In order to help gain additional credibility as a youthful female with sophisticated clients and colleagues, she earned her CFA designation. And then by building a reputation for initiative, proactive thinking and quality work, she found that opportunities presented themselves at a young age – and she said “yes” to them.

The day she planned to put in an offer on her first apartment in New York City, she was offered a position in California that she couldn’t turn down — working with a blue-chip list of clients as client service director. So instead of packing and moving to a new home in the city, she was packing her bags for California. This, to her, was an excellent lesson in seizing an opportunity, even when the timing isn’t ideal.

The role was not easy as the firm had some challenges with under-performing products and personnel turnover, and through that she learned another important lesson: You build your best client relationships during the tough times. The way one addresses client concerns – effectively and transparently – has a direct impact on successfully building a career.

Two years later the firm still hadn’t turned around, and she realized her goals and vision for her career was a mis-match with the opportunity the firm could present. Because she had built a solid network of peers in the marketplace, she put the word out that she was open to new opportunities and almost immediately had recruiters and companies calling. Narrowing it down to two appealing options, she ultimately moved to the asset management division of Wachovia, which presented itself as a start-up looking to establish a west coast presence. Flood was able to put a stake in the ground for them as the first person in an outpost office, joined shortly by key associates from her former firm as she built the west coast team.

Flood joined as consulting relations director, a role that had become a niche in its own right, and it was when she was in the process of moving to London to help expand internationally that Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo. Flood was interviewed by the acquiring management team and while they were not ready at the time for international expansion, they asked her to step into a leadership role, creating a merged global consultant relations team. She embraced the opportunity, relishing the challenge of integrating two firms.

And that Flood counts as the achievement she is most proud of so far: She was trusted as an unknown entity to play such a significant role at Wells Fargo, the acquiring firm.

In 2011, the world had settled down and international expansion again seemed like the right thing to do so she moved to London to expand the consulting relations team internationally. The role has expanded, and today Flood is Head of International Distribution for the firm.

For Flood one of the most intriguing recent developments in the industry is the growing appetite for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing. “Having investors take into account a company’s positive contribution to society brings an entirely new, satisfying dimension to my work,” she says.

Never Letting Gender Stand in The Way

While Flood has never considered gender as an obstacle, she notes that there is a growing appreciation for the role of diversity. Her one concession, she laughs, is that in her early client-facing days she learned how to play golf to allow her to more easily socialize with male colleagues.

She urges women to have confidence, particularly confronting the fear of speaking up or asking questions in a public setting because they are concerned it will make them look uninformed. “It’s about confidence, and honestly, I can guarantee there will be others in the room who will appreciate that you asked and will think favorably about you for doing so,” she says, adding that on a practical note, you will learn much faster than you otherwise would.

Outside the workplace, Flood indulges in a number of activities to bring balance to her busy work life. Her favorite involves marrying a childhood passion with giving back.

Having grown up on a working farm in Ireland, she developed a love for the beauty and spirit of horses and recently became involved with a program called Riding for the Disabled, where she can use her horse-handling experience to help educate, heal and bring joy to disabled adults and children.

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Voice of Experience: Lori Heinel, Deputy Global CIO, State Street Global Advisors

Loro HeinelBy Cathie Ericson

One of Lori Heinel’s key pieces of advice to those just starting out is to make sure to focus energy early on to build close relationships with both mentors and peers.

While her work was always impressive, she believes that it’s important to remember not to focus solely on doing good work, but to also embrace the value of strategic relationship building.

One best practice she readily shares comes from a colleague who derived untold benefits from creating her own “board of directors,” comprised of men and women with different skill sets at different places in their careers. “I always encourage women to network with people who will advocate on their behalf,” she says.

Tying Together the Threads of A Diverse Financial Services Background

And that’s because she knows that a career is very rarely a straight path, and the more people you know, the more doors that can be opened.

Although Heinel characterizes her career as “eclectic,” it has involved aspects of financial services for the past three decades, as she has held roles in fixed income sales and trading departments, as well as investment research and product development. The common thread has been a focus on the client: Whether she was selling to retail or institutional clients, her work prioritized using financial solutions to satisfy client needs. She has always welcomed the challenge and the opportunity to constantly learn new things and apply her skills in different ways to knit together these seemingly-disconnected pieces into a coherent thesis.
Heinel has been with State Street for more than three-and-a-half years and appreciates that her current position as deputy global CIO allows her to indulge her passion for markets and broad involvement in the firm’s investment capabilities. “Not only does my role entail understanding the current market environment and translating that into strategies and ideas, but I also get involved in strategic projects,” she says, noting that her broad background has lent itself well to providing value in areas from tech projects to product development.

Right now, she is particularly interested in how rapidly the environmental, social, governance (ESG) space is evolving. While social investing used to be primarily values-based, now it’s also about impact because investors are increasingly wanting both – they need solid returns but also want to know they are making an impact globally. “The industry is just at the beginning of understanding what that means in terms of meeting client expectations and how we can be a catalyst for change for the better,” Heinel says.

She also appreciates that SSGA has been vocal on diversity, including sponsoring the “She” statue, and she notes that research is increasingly proving that diversity is crucial for success. “There is a budding industry that is capturing data to provide a snapshot of how a company’s footprint is related to income equality or gender diversity. Investors can now pick something they care about and figure out exactly where a company sits in relation.”

The Concept of “Lean In” Has Merit

Looking at the role of women in the industry, Heinel sees both practical and impressionist challenges. “No matter how we slice it, women retain the bulk of child-bearing responsibilities,” she says, adding that it’s largely because women typically want to be intimately involved.

While there are legitimate times in a career that women have to make choices, she believes that companies could do more to provide women with options to offer value in different ways, so they can re-accelerate when the time is right.

“We do a good job of moving women into functional roles when they need it, but I am not sure that companies then provide the corollary, where women can re-engage for that C-level role when they are ready,” she says.

And yet she accurately notes that the skill sets women garner during those detours can actually make them more effective and bring different perspectives than those who stuck to the traditional vertical path.

On that note, she recommends that women take care not to self limit too early. She sees women in their early 20s who tell her they want to have a family so they shy away from roles that don’t immediately seem to offer the appropriate work-life balance. But she recommends that they see what happens before making those decisions; when the time comes that they do have the other responsibilities, there are ways to make things work. As she notes, if you’ve proven yourself as a quality performer, managers are willing to consider work-from-home arrangements and other flexible options, as increasingly companies realize they need to retain these contributors by making appropriate accommodations.

“If you see something interesting, go for it,” she advises. And even if the position doesn’t materialize, the visibility that professionals receive from putting their name up and striving for it can pay dividends in other potential opportunities down the road.

Heinel has been active in gender diversity programs for decades at her various companies, and currently chairs SSGA’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. She also acts as a mentor for the firm’s mentoring circles program as well as on an ad hoc basis for midcareer women.

Personally she helped start an informal group years ago called “Connected Women,” a loose affiliation of career-minded women who formed the group after realizing that they were lacking in social connections since they’d devoted the past years to raising their families and building their careers.

She started the group in Philadelphia as a way to have fun together, compared to most affinity groups that have professional goals. She has since formed similar chapters as she’s moved to New York and Boston, finding of course, that new business and professional connections have been an important byproduct, if not the sole intent.

Her other key outlet is travel and for Heinel, the ideal vacation involves something very physical — where all she can think about is the challenge in front of her, so she gravitates toward adventure trips, like skiing and ice climbing. “It’s the best way to get out of the day-to-day and really relax and come back refreshed.”

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Voice of Experience: Anna George, Head of Product Asia Pacific, WEX Inc.

Anna George WEX

By Cathie Ericson

“Take every opportunity because you never know where it may lead you,” says WEX’ Anna George, and certainly that has been a theme in her varied career path.

A Divergent and Successful Career

George’s first job was selling advertising space, but she very quickly learned that it was not her forte. She moved into the payments industry quite accidentally, she says, via Coles Financial Services, where she worked in operational roles while studying for her degree in Business Information Technology.

She then worked for GE for 15 years where she earned steady promotions and advanced in a variety of roles from business analysis to project management and process improvement. She eventually landed on product management as a real passion because it required the depth of knowledge and experience she had gained throughout her career. Three years ago she moved across to WEX to head up its product and innovation function.

Currently she is working through new product launches that will meet WEX’ business objectives of diversifying its portfolio. One truth she has learned over the years that applies to all her current endeavors is to always understand your customers’ and stakeholders’ needs in order to provide the right solution to the initiative or problem you are trying to solve.

One trend George finds particularly interesting is the upcoming disruption of blockchain and the importance of understanding the use cases relevant to the industry. “This is a game changer, and we need to get on the front foot,” she says. In addition, she cites 4IR, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, as another area that will provide efficiencies once the ethical considerations are ironed out.

While George has had a number of professional achievements, including winning a recent Women in Payments innovation award, she is most proud of her role in developing team members and mentoring professionals who have gone on to become great leaders in various organizations.

She strives to help women overcome the stumbling block of knowing where to start and how to access the industry. One way to gain that expertise she recommends, is to start your career with a large organization and then work hard across diverse functions to build a skillset that can then be adapted to any industry. Finding a strong leader whom you can trust to help you with challenging decisions and advice is a must at every level.

Enjoying Travel and Giving Back

Married for a decade to an IT project manager, she says he helps keep their lives organized. They enjoy traveling with their six-year-old daughter, and George herself has a passion for traveling and experiencing new cultures, having visited 24 countries so far, with many more still on the bucket list, including a trip to Ireland this spring with the company’s President’s Club.

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Voice of Experience: Jennifer Hanes, Head of Investment Management and Operations, Buy Side Solutions at FIS Global

FIS
“When you make a commitment to focus on developing an area of domain expertise and own it, you’ll earn the credibility you desire,” says FIS’ Jennifer Hanes, offering words of advice for career novices.

“Define success for yourself; no one can give you the road map, so decide the most important criteria for success as it pertains to you, and then focus there.”

Several Industries Contribute to Career Growth

Hanes herself knows the importance of carving out a path that’s unique but beneficial for each individual. She earned undergraduate degrees in journalism and French in hopes of pursuing a career in international advertising, but at the time she graduated there were no professional jobs readily available. Having spent summers in the financial services industry, she took a position in investment banking as a research analyst. She earned her Series 7 and other designations to come up to speed quickly.

While she gained valuable experience, she decided that wasn’t the career for her, so she moved to a small firm in the municipal bond industry as the fourth employee, learning on the job and completing a master’s in business administration at night. She worked there for several years until it was acquired by Thomson Financial, which offered her more opportunity in a wide variety of roles including product management, business operations and marketing, as well as more international experience.

In 1999 she got the “dot com” bug and was lured by the possibility of something entirely different to join a company that specialized in antiques. While it was short-lived, she acquired a helpful perspective on the internet industry, but decided to move back to a bigger firm in the financial services field where she could return to a more international role. She joined SunGard, which became FIS, and has steadily grown with the firm, occupying roles from marketing to business operations and strategy. Currently she runs FIS’ global software and services portfolio business of fund and investor accounting, transfer agency, risk management, reconciliation, pricing and financial reporting solutions.

While she is proud of her many business-related outcomes in delivering top and bottom-line results, she finds her most satisfying professional achievement to be the impact she has had on developing her team members over the years and helping them flourish in their careers.

Right now, Hanes says she is inspired by the chance to see the strategy that her team has developed come to fruition as they execute on a more holistic and integrated business model that clients have been looking for. “It’s exciting to see something all the way through from strategy to execution and the positive effect we are having on clients as we use innovative technology to help them drive better business performance.”

She also is excited to see how artificial intelligence and its predictive analysis capability is being used to create ever more clever ways to take huge volumes of data and crunch it down to find patterns to drive investment returns. And, while less buzzy, she says that another exciting development to watch is how firms can create efficiency by leveraging automation and robotics in back office procedures to drive bottom-line profitability, achieving better results while saving time and effort.

Career Advice To Reach The Top

Looking back over her career, Hanes suggests that those starting out consider the value of networking and how helpful it can be. “As I got older and more confident in my abilities networking became easier, but it’s wise to start early.” She has found value in seeking out diverse perspectives from a variety of industries to solve problems and explore areas like people and project management that are not industry-specific.

Hanes believes that professionals at all levels should make deliberate time for mindful reflection. “We live in an era when everything is instant, and tons of information is coming at you constantly, but you need time to think and process, particularly when it comes to complex issues.” She advises women to find time to efficiently digest and reflect – such as while you’re exercising or commuting – to arrive at better answers.

Cognizant of the need to devote time to balance her career with other pursuits, Hanes has helmed a book club for 22 years and enjoys spending time cooking. Married with two grown sons in their 20s, she has been fortunate to have been able to take them on many of her travels, which has contributed to their increased awareness of diversity in the world.

Hanes also takes time to give back, sitting on the board of her alma mater, the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She also is on the board of the industry association NICSA, whose member firms include major asset managers, servicers and large banking institutions. They are at the beginning stages of looking at partnerships for a diversity initiative, underscoring how a deliberate focus on diversity should ultimately drive better business outcomes.

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Voice of Experience: Paula Moreira, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Paula MoreiraWhen Goldman Sachs’ Paula Moreira explains the framework that helps her succeed, she references a pyramid, with honesty and humility as key components of the base.

The body and top of the pyramid are driven by effort and personal mission, respectively. Those traits, combined with her drive, have fueled Moreira’s career.

A Career Spanning Regions

Moreira’s interest in finance is rooted in lessons her parents ingrained in her early on. “They taught me how important it is to work hard and dream big to attain financial independence,” Moreira says.

That’s one reason a career in finance had always appealed to her, as she knew that industry would give her ample opportunity to achieve those goals. She studied industrial engineering to develop her technical expertise, and then began her finance career at a French bank. She soon moved to Credit Suisse, which gave her the opportunity to work in New York. “I had always dreamed about working in that important financial center,” she says of her initial move from Brazil to New York.

While in the US, she pursued an MBA at Harvard Business School to complement her technical background with stronger management and leadership abilities. After completing her MBA in 2002, she began working on Goldman Sachs’ Latin American sales desk. Moreira was so excited to get to work that she cut short a vacation and began taking Spanish classes to sharpen her language skills.

She moved back to Sao Paulo in 2010 and has been there since, leading a team focused on serving Brazilian banks, asset managers, hedge funds, pension funds and insurance companies. Moreira has found the most rewarding aspect of her career to be building a successful team who is connected, committed to helping one another and working toward the same objective. Moreira is also fulfilled by providing her clients with superior support and ensuring they achieve their goals.

Identifying Transformative Trends

Currently, Moreira is particularly excited about growth dynamics in Brazil, as the country emerges from a difficult recession. She notes that as part of the cyclical rebound in the country, rates have been cut by more than a half, causing dynamic changes in the market. Moreira explains that significant investments previously allocated to money market funds are now being funneled to alternative asset classes like hedge funds – one of her biggest client bases – as well as investments in structured products and equity. “There is a significant opportunity to capture these trends in a country that is experiencing a big cyclical rebound,” she notes.

Moreira has also been interested in the impact of technology on the trading business, particularly the rise in electronic execution among credit, rates and commodities clients, a trend that has already been incorporated into foreign exchange trading. “It’s important that I connect my clients to our global platforms,” and notes, “I love my job because I’m constantly learning from my clients as well as other GS colleagues.”

Helping Advance Diversity

Last year, Moreira joined the Brazil Management Committee. This is in addition to her responsibilities as co-chair of the Brazil Diversity Committee, and she also previously served as co-head of the Brazil Women’s Network. During her tenure as co-chair of the Women’s Network, she learned firsthand how the network connects individuals and helps attract, develop and retain women. She also greatly enjoyed her role organizing content-rich events for members that were focused on topical issues in the workplace, such as the “confidence gap” many women face.

She has particularly enjoyed recruiting others to pursue careers in financial services by dispelling the perception that it’s hard to be a woman in finance. “It’s important to be present at schools and show people that they can reconcile work with personal lives and having a family,” she says. She hopes that her efforts will help plant the seeds for a more diverse workforce down the road.

“Because of cultural bias, many women lack confidence, and it’s vital to break these barriers and make sure women realize there are no obstacles in what they can achieve,” Moreira says. “I really hope that parents would ask their daughters to complete the same tasks that they ask of their sons in order to instill confidence and ambition in their daughters.”

Asking for Help – and Helping Others

Moreira knows that no one can do it alone, and she has learned to recognize the importance of asking for help and, in turn, helping others. “We often don’t ask for help, even though people feel rewarded when they have the chance to be the helper.” This realization has helped her to be more upfront about asking for support in both her personal and professional life.

She tries to make room in her personal framework for equal focus on family, work, and health, and often tries to organize weekend activities that bring family, friends and exercise together. She is proud of the wonderful family she has built with her husband, three daughters and two stepsons, and hopes she can inspire others.

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Voice of Experience: Pamela M. Harper, Griesing Law, LLC

Pamela M HarperBy Cathie Ericson

Domain expertise is not sufficient for success, says Pamela Harper.

“Being able to navigate the political landscape is just as important as being technically competent.” And, she adds, it’s distinct from knowing the unwritten rules, but includes the ability to understand the subtle nuances that comes with time and expertise. “What is unsaid is often more important than what is said.”

Two Disciplines Create a High-Powered Career

After earning graduate degrees in both law and business, Harper worked at a law firm where her career took a turn to industries that she never would or could have anticipated, such as aviation, consulting and money management, with each position allowing her to use skills she had developed in grad school.

“People had questioned why I attended both business and law school, but both degrees have proven to be invaluable. I wanted to do whatever I could to gain a competitive edge, and this combination has supplied that for my entire career.”

One of the professional achievements she is most proud of so far was being part of a team that built a comprehensive compliance program for an institutional money management firm. To ensure they were as thorough as possible, they took the extra step of subjecting it to a voluntary third-party audit, a precaution that is rarely taken.

To this day, she says her former team still receives recognition for the robust compliance controls that were put in place. “Many small money management firms don’t realize that compliance can be a competitive differentiator,” she notes; instead they see it as a cost and therefore don’t allocate sufficient funds. “Forward-thinking companies consider it a form of revenue protection and therefore a risk management tool.”

As chair of her firm’s Corporate Transactions and Compliance practice group, Harper is intrigued by two current issues in corporate compliance: First, she notes that the level of misconduct that has been witnessed recently has been staggering, but she believes it will lead boards to pay an increased amount of attention to the impact of corporate culture on business strategy and reputation.

“Ignore it and the result will be decreased brand equity and diminished shareholder value. Boards will start taking these issues seriously and give them the attention they deserve,” she says, adding that while culture is often perceived as a HR issue in reality, it is a risk issue. “There will be a higher level of scrutiny and attention, and the complacency that has allowed boards to willfully ignore misconduct and aberrant behavior will no longer be acceptable.”

Second, she finds that very few boards have separate stand-alone compliance committees and even fewer have members who are knowledgeable about corporate compliance. The prevailing trend has been to draw potential board members from the ranks of current or former CEOs, but she noted that as board refreshment occurs, hopefully companies will begin to consider candidates with backgrounds in corporate compliance and risk management.

As part of her focus on compliance, Harper is undertaking the process of becoming a FINRA arbitrator. She says that given the repercussions of the Madoff affair, she has been surprised by the number of people who are neither savvy about their investments or their rights as investors. “Being part of a panel that can deliver recommendations on how to resolve those types of conflicts is very interesting to me.”

A Firm That Supports Women – Every Day

Currently Harper is thriving at a woman-owned law firm, which she says embodies the highest caliber of legal services, while creating an environment where women don’t have to make an artificial choice between succeeding in their careers and having a thriving personal life. “Those shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, and we have created a unique culture that doesn’t assign origination credit, which contributes to a collaborative team environment and deters intra-office competition.”

She has found over the years that women in the industry face one challenge that men don’t: “Regardless of your credentials and intellectual bandwidth, you still have to prove yourself every day. Period. Women do not have the luxury of mediocrity.”

One key way to bolster your career is to recognize the difference between what a mentor and a sponsor can do for you. “A mentor is nice to have and will give you general advice, but a sponsor — someone who typically occupies a positon of power and is invested in your success — is a must-have,” she says, adding that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

And she urges even women who have achieved a high level of success to remain intellectually curious. “It’s easy to become stale when you reach a certain point professionally and personally, but it’s vital to keep growing.” That’s always part of Harper’s plan; in addition to her work with FINRA, she is planning to earn a certificate in the business of art.

Further indulging her passion for art, Harper serves on the board for the Center for Emerging Visual Artists and also is an avid supporter of cancer research.

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